Can You Apply to Americorps Again if Not Accepted?
Article Writer:
Ariel Allen, Staff & CAC AmeriCorps Alum 2014-2015
With the approaching new year, in the thick of the nostalgic post-Christmas bubble, I started digging through my old emails and began piecing together a story of my humbling past few years. Below is a compilation of excerpts from my bodily emails that will non only guide you, but has likewise helped me relive the painful rejections and ultimate triumph that perfectly captures my AmeriCorps journey. Hopefully y'all can identify with both my self- deprecating grief and eventual success as part of your own narrative. For your viewing pleasance:
It all started with an email:
Subject: GoEco Project Info: Costa Rica Seaturtle Conservation
06/16/11 at three:01 AM
Hi Ariel,
I am pleased to confirm your placement in Republic of costa rica!
Project name: Sea Turtle Conservation + Spanish calendar week
Organisation: Amistad Constitute
Location: To Be Adamant- you will receive an info canvas with full details about your specific embankment virtually a month prior to your placement
…..
Footling did I know, this unceremonious acceptance email dorsum from 2011 would eventually shape my burgeoning future career of environmental service. I'm sure I would have never believed yous if you said information technology would take
me from the beaches of Costa Rica and somewhen land me Knoxville, Tennessee. When I received this email I thought surely this was only the offset and would be followed past a parade of acceptances and chore offers after graduation. Optimistic, a bit naïve, and rejection far from my mind, I headed back after that summer to finish upwards higher.
Long after the summer of hard work and blissful being working adjacent with some of the all-time people I've ever met (I'm looking at You Iain Ferguson), I institute myself back in school, replacing the passion for the environment for another in folklore and soon earned my degree. But if you were anything like me, later graduating, the showering of job offers that had been promised to you by advisors, professors, and parents as a reward and sole purpose for your collegiate efforts never came. You instead suffered blow later on blow to your brusk lived post-graduate-bloated- self-esteem due to the absolute lack of interest in your resume in the job marketplace. Like and so many other graduates, I walked across that green grass of a phase thinking a chore would exist begging for me on the other side. Instead, the proverbial "other side" offered me my sometime high school job which I eagerly accepted in an human activity of desperation. I spent the next summertime, fall and winter working and applying for promising positions that my sociology degree would qualify me for. After an impressive collection of rejection letters, emails, phone calls and not-responses, two things became abundantly clear:
- "Entry" level positions that still require 2 years of feel is the most frustrating oxymoronic concept (how are you ever supposed to gain the often repeated requirement of 2 years experience if NO ONE Will Ever Hire You TO BEGIN WITH?)
- If I ever wanted to become my career started, I was going to accept to pursue it from a different bending.
That bound, fueled by ane part cocky-determination and 3 parts contempt for the gainfully employed, I enrolled in graduate school thinking that a masters degree would surely open up more opportunities down the route. In the meantime, I nonetheless applied for jobs- I even submitted an awarding to an AmeriCorps VISTA program in my local area:
Bailiwick: VISTA Project Coordinator Position
10/02/13 at 7:12 PM
Good Afternoon,
We appreciate your involvement in CHILDREN AT Gamble and the AmeriCorps VISTA project coordinator position for which you applied. After reviewing the applications nosotros received, yours was non selected for further consideration. Other candidates more closely fit the position'southward requirements.
The choice committee appreciates the time y'all invested in your awarding. We encourage you to apply for posted and advertised positions in our company, for which you authorize, in the futurity.
We wish you every personal and professional success with your job search and in the future. Thank you, again, for your interest in our company.
For me, this was the all too familiar "we appreciate your interest merely…." electronic mail. I must accept received it dozens of times. "We wish yous every personal and professional person success with your job search and in the future". Were they mocking me? I didn't need their smug well wishes- I needed a job. Defeated for the terminal time, I began to accept my underemployment purgatory.
Months by. I was almost finished with my first grueling semester of graduate school and fulltime underemployment. With finals apace budgeted, another e-mail pinged my inbox:
Subject: AmeriCorps Online Arrangement – Listing Match From Sponsor
04/17/14 at 10:xix AM
Dear Ariel Rose Allen:
Thank you very much for your interest in AmeriCorps. After reviewing your profile, we have decided that you possess the necessary qualifications for the * CAC AmeriCorps 2014-fifteen projection. If yous would like to receive more data about this project opportunity, please click the link provided below. Nosotros profoundly encourage you to use for this position. If y'all would like to apply, merely login to your account and search for the listing.
Somehow in the AmeriCorps online stratosphere, in which I had submitted that ill-fated resume to months prior, had been reviewed and deemed a friction match for a different plan. A truthful miracle. I eagerly clicked the link. CAC Americorps. Knoxville, Tennessee. I googled. "Our focus at CAC AmeriCorps is Ecology Service," I read. Did my 1 summer working at the conservation lab really qualify me for ecology service work this program offered? Putting studying for finals on hold, I took the chance and only applied.
A month later, another email. This one was unlike. I stared at it, rereading it in disbelief- they wanted to fix an interview. WITH ME. A few more days passed, the phone rang and it was time for my interview. After 45 minutes, fretfulness soon dissolved into excitement. I quickly realized my waning interest in sociology and graduate school was no match for what CAC AmeriCorps could offer me. Information technology would requite me the opportunity to refuel my almost forgotten passion I had discovered while working forth the beaches in Costa Rica many summers before. To my amazement, I made the first round interview cut. They and then passed along my application to ane of their sites at Keep Knoxville Cute:
Subject field: AmeriCorps Position
05/13/xiv at 4:37 PM
Ms. Allen,
XXXX XXXX forwarded me your awarding and I am extremely interested in talking with y'all virtually coming to piece of work at Go along Knoxville Cute. When is a good time for me to call you?
This was the very outset time I ever had a potential employer use the words "extremely" and "interested in you lot" in consecutive order in response to my application. The second round interview finished up and I could hardly keep still from the mounting excitement. A few days later, I received what I had spent the last year waiting for:
Subject field: Welcome to 2014-2015 CAC AmeriCorps Program!
05/19/14 at 3:11 PM
Miss Ariel Allen,
On behalf of the Knoxville-Knox County Community Action committee AmeriCorps Programme we would like to welcome you to the 2014-2015 CAC AmeriCorps Continue Knoxville Cute position! We are excited about a slap-up year of service learning and positively impacting the environment within the local community y'all will serve. We look forward to a great year and hope you have an awesome experience with our Corps!
Was my purgatorial being finally ending? Yes, I had been 
absolved of my underemployment sins and been granted passage into a brighter time to come. By the finish of summertime, I had moved to Knoxville and eagerly waited for the year to get started. I had no idea what it would bring, only I knew it would lead me on the "two years feel" path. What I didn't know is that it would put me in contact with so many wonderful, inspiring people every bit well as bring invaluable experiences and opportunities my way. Truly, it has changed my life and has been i of the best decisions I've ever fabricated- merely I'll write well-nigh that another time.
After an incredible twelvemonth serving at Keep Knoxville Beautiful, my time in that location was winding down. During my last few months and almost a twelvemonth to date since my own credence into the program, I received this email:
Subject area: Employment/ Volunteer Opportunities
05/04/15
To whom it may concern,
My proper noun is Christine Doka and I will be graduating from the University of South Carolina with a BA in Environmental Studies and with leadership distinction in Professional and Civic Engagement this May. I have a strong passion for sustainability and ecology educational activity, and believe that there is no alternative for a sustainable future than going green. …
I am originally from the Knoxville surface area, and am excited to movement back and swoop into whatever and all 'green' initiatives that are taking place! If you lot believe that my skills could be valuable to your system, delight exercise not hesitate to contact me via phone or e-mail. I have attached my resume if y'all are interested in viewing that as well. I promise to hear from you soon!
I had written that email and so many times to prospective employers. I felt her passion and relived the disturbing experience of waiting for a response that was ultimately a rejection- and now I was well-nigh to write her i:
Subject: RE: Employment/Volunteer Opportunities
05/06/15
Hello Christine!
Thank yous and then much for your interest in Keep Knoxville Cute! We are actually transitioning staff right now. We are losing our Executive Director and our only other staff fellow member (me) is really through AmeriCorps. If you are not familiar, AmeriCorps is essentially a domestic PeaceCorps. It has been as absolutely transformative experience for me and one I highly recommend. Our xl fellow member Corps specifically focuses on environmental sustainability hither in East TN and places you at a diversity of different positions across Knoxville with one of those positions existence here at Keep Knoxville Beautiful. If you are moving back to the Knoxville expanse and are looking for a rewarding experience, I would definitely bank check out the CAC AmeriCorps program to learn more than information. Now, this is essentially a year long volunteer position simply with HUGE perks. In exchange for your twelvemonth of service, AmeriCorps offers you lot a small biweekly living stipend and a $5,000 educational honor to pay dorsum students loans or to use towards future schooling. Yous also become function of a national programme and will be recognized throughout the community accordingly and permit me tell ya, Knoxville has huge pride in their AmeriCorps members. I think they are yet accepting applications if this is something yous are interested in.
I'm not certain if this is exactly the information you were looking for just I read your resume and I thought yous'd be a great fit for the AmeriCorps program. You tin besides telephone call me straight if you lot have any more questions.
Hope this helps!
Ariel
Unbeknownst to me, this rejection would presently offset her own AmeriCorps journey. The wonderful Christine Doka now serves in the 2015-2016 CAC AmeriCorps program with the Aslan Foundation- a direct result of the electronic mail I sent her encouraging her to utilise. So many hours were spent cursing the people who rejected my application, ignored my resume and offered me luck instead of employment. Merely knowing what I do now, maybe I should thank them. Their rejection has led me here and subsequently my rejection led Christine here.
And so, I encourage the rejected to apply. At present as staff at CAC AmeriCorps I can earnestly tell you: we see you, nosotros recognize you, we were y'all. Don't allow the rejections of the past dissuade you from pursing your time to come.
Who knows? Maybe you'll even receive an acceptance email from me.
PS- if you lot are Iain and reading this, thank you for helping me gloat the birthday I never knew I had! Sea Turtle.
This blog post is a collection of personal reflections and expressions. All opinions represented are those of the author and do non correspond the official opinion or views of the Knoxville – Knox County Customs Action committee, CAC AmeriCorps or any other political party referenced.
Source: https://cacamericorps.org/2015/12/31/an-americorps-journey-through-emails-a-story-of-rejection/
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